Masterclass in Construction: Winning FIDIC Contracts

Explore project procurement routes and FIDIC contracts in depth, detailing parties, risks, and claims in construction projects through practical and theoretical learning.

Define and coordinate the project procurement framework to tailor constructible assets to client requirements by coordinating multiple specialized organizations, allocating risk, and governing responsibilities, information flows, and financial transactions.

Align construction procurement with the client's strategic goals, from need verification to project closeout, by linking primary business strategy to procurement strategy and delivery.

Trace how a client’s business need starts project initiation, feasibility, and value management; select terms by risk appetite, appoint a team, conduct gate reviews, and award work packages to deliver.

Explore the three levels of construction procurement: strategic-industry, firm, and project-task. Examine procurement routes such as design and build, construction management, and management contracting, and their contract types.

Explore how procurement route choices shape project success, risk distribution, and contract selection, and compare traditional procurement, design-bid-build, design-build, EPC turnkey, management contracting, and construction management options.

Traditional procurement, or design-bid-build, completes the design before contractor appointment, with the client controlling design and scope. It is awarded to the lowest bidder through competitive tendering, offering cost certainty.

Examine the design and build route, where a single contractor designs and constructs under a lump-sum fixed-price contract, delivering time and cost certainty but transferring design risk.

Explore EPC turnkey, a design and build variant for heavy construction. Engage a single contractor to engineer, procure, and construct under a lump-sum contract, transferring risk to the contractor.

Management contracting serves as a procurement route where a management contractor advises on programming and buildability, with packages awarded to trade contractors and design and construction overlapping.

Analyze construction management as a procurement route with a manager coordinating direct contracts with trade contractors. Evaluate advantages, disadvantages, and risks such as duration reduction and no upfront cost certainty.

Explore how risk is distributed across procurement options, from CMAR, construction manager at risk, and traditional procurement with design risk to management contracting, design and build, and EPC turnkey contracts.

Explore tendering types and procedures, including private finance initiative and public-private partnership projects. Examine various payment methods used in construction projects.

An invitation to tender is a client-initiated process to solicit bids, detailing participants, contract form, site, scope with preliminary construction method, start date, completion period, tender schedule, and confidentiality.

Explore traditional, open, selective, negotiated or nominated, serial, and two-stage tendering, with qualification criteria and award methods like lowest price or most economical advantages tender.

Public finance initiative projects involve the private sector consortium financing, designing, constructing, and operating public infrastructure over long contracts, typically 20 to 30 years, with varied ownership or lease arrangements.

Explores risk distribution in pfi and ppp projects across built-in transfer, built-lease transfer, built-transfer-operate, built-operate-transfer, built-on-operate-transfer, and built-on-operate, clarifying who bears costs, ownership, and payment timing.

Explore the distinction between price and cost, compare price-based and cost-based payment methods, and examine risk distribution across lump sum, priced activities, remeasurement, target costing, and cost reimbursable contracts.

Explore common FIDIC contracts and their risk liability differences, and compare the 1999 version with the 2017 edition, noting ongoing use and growing adoption.

Explain conditions of contract as a written agreement between employer and contractor that defines rights and obligations, supports standard forms, and governs risk, instructions, and project execution to prevent disputes.

Compare the 1999 and 2017 fidic editions, highlighting sharper risk allocation, detailed claims and disputes, mandatory dispute avoidance and adjudication board, and split general conditions for improved project controls.

Explore the major changes in the 2017 FIDIC edition, including new definitions, two-volume structure, DAAB and dispute framework, and enhanced notices, time extensions, and engineer roles.

Explore FIDIC contract types—red book for traditional design-bid-build, yellow book for design-build, and silver book for EPC turnkey—highlighting risk distribution and the engineer as contract administrator.

Compare FIDIC red book, yellow book, and silver book contracts, highlighting risk allocation, design obligations, notices, and entitlement to extension of time or costs for delays, errors, and employer takeovers.

Navigate notice and claim clauses across the contract execution phase, and learn how timely submissions prevent time bars that risk loss of rights; master effective claim submission processes.

Learn how claims and notices define entitlement under the contract, trigger rights, and establish time-sensitive deadlines for cost, delay, or variation events.

Visualize the Fidic claims framework under subclauses 20.1 and 20.2 with a flowchart, detailing notices of claim, the engineer's initial response, fully detailed and interim claims, and the engineer's determination.

Refer disputes to the DAAB within 42 days of a nod, with a written case under subclauses 21.4.1–21.4.3, and a binding decision in 84 days before arbitration after amicable settlement.

Explore the FIDIC variation procedures: variation by instruction, value engineering, and variation by request for proposal, including timelines, pricing adjustments, and the engineer's role in approving changes.

Identify the employer's claims under FIDIC contracts, covering compliance with laws, performance security, testing, defects, progress, and termination, plus adjustments for changes in laws.

Learn to file contractor claims under fidic contracts, detailing notices, extensions of time, and cost plus profit for delays caused by employer obligations and compliance issues.

Highlight the 28-day notice requirement under subclause 20.2.1, and stress timely notice to secure payments, extensions, and DNP rights in claim management.

Explain how verbal instructions evolving into variations require written confirmation or notices of claim under FIDIC, and how delaying notices risks time bars and loss of rights.

Variation can be initiated under subclause 13.3.2 by a request for proposal, but work shall not commence without engineer’s consent. The contractor is entitled to costs for submitting the variation.

Submit fully detailed claims within 84 days of awareness or as agreed by the engineer to avoid lapse, and file interim monthly claims for the continuing effect under 20.2.6.

Examine how the employer's early use of parts before a taking over certificate causes deemed taking over, transfers liability, affects retention money, and triggers the defects notification period.

Explore the FIDIC red book obligations for contractors submitting shop drawings and method statements, and how value engineering proposals with engineer consent can trigger variations and time and cost impacts.